Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/802

778 fungi. The author of the latter paper is Charles H. Peck; all the others are by Augustus R. Grote. Mr. Grote is well known to entomologists as an authority on the subjects which he discusses, and the Buffalo society is to be congratulated for being the medium through which the laborious and valuable researches of so able a naturalist are published to the world. The papers are strictly scientific and technical, being intended solely for those who pursue methodically the special branches of science to which they refer. They are not popular expositions, but rather brief notes on certain departments of natural science, to be understood and valued only by the initiated. The Bulletin is handsomely printed on good paper, in octavo form. Subscription price, $2.50 per volume.

paper was read at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Newport, R. I., in 1860, and was published in the volume of proceedings of the Association for that year. The extraordinary interest taken in Arctic affairs during the past two years has led to its reissue in pamphlet form, with brief introductory observations on the present state of the problem. Accepting the view, now quite generally held, that an open sea, or at least a much ameliorated climate, exists in the vicinity of the pole, the author, in this paper, aims to show that such a condition of things "is largely if not entirely due to the currents of the air from the equatorial regions which move in the higher strata of the earth's atmosphere, bearing heat and moisture with them." How well he succeeds in this undertaking, we leave the readers of the argument to judge.

Washington Catalogue of Stars. By order of Rear-Admiral Sands, U. S. N. Washington, 1873.

First Annual Report of the Minnesota State Board of Health. St. Paul, 1873, pp. 102.

Scientific and Industrial Education. A Lecture. By G. B. Stebbins. Detroit, 1873, pp. 24.

The Railroads of the United States. By Henry V. Poor. New York: H. V. & H. W. Poor, 68 Broadway, pp. 29.

Cosmical and Molecular Harmonics, No. II. By Pliny Earle Chase, M. A. Philadelphia, 1873, pp. 16.

Nickel. By Dr. Lewis Feuchtwanger, pp. 19.

Diminution of Water on the Earth, and its Permanent Conversion into Solid Forms. By Mrs. George W. Houk. Dayton, 0., 1873, pp. 39.

Sixth Annual Report of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology. Cambridge, 1873, pp. 27. Mr. Gillman's report of his explorations of the ancient mounds on the St. Clair River is an important contribution to archæology. The museum is in a flourishing state, and growing steadily. The Niccolucci collection of ancient crania and implements was the most important addition made during the past year.

 

Utilization of Waste Coal.—The English Mechanic gives an historical sketch of the various processes suggested for the utilization of the waste of coal-mines. From this account it would appear that so early as the close of the sixteenth century the waste of small coal attracted notice. About the year 1594 one Sir Hugh Piatt proposed a mixture of coal-dust and loam, together with such combustible materials as sawdust and tanners' bark: the loam being the cement which was to hold the other ingredients together. But Sir Hugh's suggestions did not receive much attention in those early times, when coal was but little used, wood being the staple fuel of England.

It was only at the beginning of the present century that this question began to receive serious attention. A patent was then granted for a mixture of refuse coal with charcoal, wood, breeze, tan, peat, sawdust, cork-cuttings, and other inflammable ingredients. A capital objection to such a